Mr. Personality (23 page)

A hard laugh escaped Pete. “There wasn’t exactly a lot of
talking.”

“Okay,” Max responded with a touch of morbid humor. “I’m glad we yelled at each other. You have a right to do more than yell at me.”

“So, is Ryan okay?” Max sometimes thought about his nephew, but he carried even more remorse about the kid than about his brother. He’d told himself not seeing Ryan grow up was part of his punishment. After all, he’d contributed to the breakup of the boy’s parents.

“They, uh, the team, have their first game on Thursday…if you’d like to come,” Pete offered in a distant voice. “It’s not a big deal, though. You probably won’t want to—“

“Hey, maybe…” Max said quickly. “If I do, I’ll wear some kind of disguise so I don’t bring the press dogs along with me…wouldn’t want to steal the kids’ limelight.”

“Okay,” Pete said, accepting the olive branch. “That would be good, if you can.”

This time when Max put the phone down, he felt…lighter. Damn, how long had it been since he’d been optimistic about much of anything?

A sound from the door jerked his head up. Nicole stood there, surprise on her beautiful face, her blond hair caught up in a tiny, disheveled knot. “Were you talking to your brother?”

“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly while the insane part of himself rejoiced in the dawning pleasure on her face.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Why couldn’t he control his reaction to her?

“You called him?” she asked eagerly, her eyes rewarding him a thousand times over for the infinitesimal movement he’d made toward Pete.

“Yes.” God, he wanted her to look at him like that always, but he knew he couldn’t always be the man she was imagining him to be. Knew her “love” was based on her seeing him as profoundly deficient. Still responding to the irrational desire to cling to her approval, he said, “He mentioned that my nephew, Ryan, plays t-ball. He’s on a team with Ruth’s son, Josh.”

“And Pete invited you to come to the game?” Her voice rose with excitement. “That’s great! Don’t you see? He’s opening up to you.”

“He didn’t invite me. I asked about Ryan and he mentioned that Ry’s playing ball. That’s all,” Max said, feeling like a louse that he’d succumbed to his urge to earn her smiles. She didn’t know his motivation. Sure, he wanted to reconnect with Pete somewhat, but that didn’t hold any altruism. He was simply tired of eating alone on the holidays.

Nicole crossed the spacious bedroom to where he knelt by the windows, his notebooks spread all around him.

“It’s more than that. He wouldn’t say anything about his son’s ballgames if he weren’t thinking about inviting you,” she said quietly, bending forward.

Her lips brushed his cheek softly and he felt himself go rigid to keep from jerking her into his arms.

Watching her turn and leave the room, Max resisted the shudders of reaction rippling through him. What the hell had this woman done to him? And would he ever be himself again?

CHAPTER TWELVE

She was turning into a real New Yorker, Nicole thought, rushing down the street a day later. In a hurry and growing accustomed to living amidst millions of other people, she hardly looked at the others standing next to her waiting for the light to change.

This one time, she’d forgotten to set the alarm clock and now here she was an hour late for her check-in time at the Maxwell Tucker salt mine, she thought with an inward grin. Not that he’d been particularly difficult to work for lately, she mused, glancing at the shop window on the corner. In fact, the man seemed almost mellow. The occasional smoldering glance didn’t surprise her given the increasing sexual
zing!
flitting between them. Not that she’d acted on it. Everything that had happened since their twenty-four hour tryst left her still unsure of the man’s capacity for a relationship.

But Max was undoubtedly experiencing personal growth. If his on-going efforts to mend the damage he’d done with Pete was any indication, he might at least be headed in the right direction. Despite the severity of his mistake, his apologizing to his brother could only help.

The traffic light still stubbornly red, Nicole glanced around, realizing she was standing outside the coffee house across from Max’s apartment house. She spent a brief moment wondering if having a latte was worth being an hour and fifteen minutes late. Probably not.

Just about to turn away and follow the herd across the street as the light then changed, she caught sight of a figure through the coffee house window. Nicole’s gaze sharpened as she focused on the scene inside the shop.

What the heck? Just inside the coffee house stood Max, his long arms propped on the back of a chair. He appeared to be talking to two people who were seated at a small table, both leaning forward raptly to catch whatever sardonic comment Max had made.

As Nicole watched, startled to see him in a place he’d said he’d never go, one of Max’s audience pushed a book forward and extended a pen toward him. Cringing in expectation of the repulse Nicole knew was coming, her shocked gaze took in the sight of a smiling Max bending forward and actually signing the man’s book!

Max giving a fan his autograph? How unbelievable and…sweet.

Her feet carrying her forward, Nicole went to the door and stepped inside the shop. The noisy chatter of the place enveloped her along with the distinctive aroma of coffee beans and steamed milk.

“No,” Max said to the woman whose friend had asked for the autograph. “I haven’t signed books much before, but lately I’m figuring ‘what the hell?’ Someone wants to sell my scrawl on eBay, let ‘em!”

Nicole could hardly believe her ears. Moving out of the doorway as several other customers tried to pass, she smiled. Max. Out here like this in public. Seeing him take a step outside of himself, outside his defensive isolation, left her a little surprised. And from the look of his half-empty cup, he’d been here a few minutes.

First he called Pete and now this!

“Excuse me, Mr. Tucker,” a young man said, pausing diffidently beside Max. “I just wanted to tell you how much I loved
Rough Waters.
All your books are great, but that one turned me into a reader.”

One of the two women Max had been talking to previously sighed and said, “It must be so wonderful to hear how people are so moved by your books.”

Laughing, Max said, “It is…unless they’re moved to strike me off their reading list. I hear that I have better days and not-so-good days.”

“Well,” the woman said, “I really appreciate meeting you and thanks so much for the autograph.”

“It’s nothing,” Max replied, looking slightly embarrassed. “Well…hope you have a good breakfast.”

Nicole looked at him with tenderness welling up inside her. He was willingly interacting with his fans! She wanted to walk over and kiss him on the mouth. Maybe he was seeing the need to move outside his restricted world. Anyone not having seen his profound avoidance of people in general wouldn’t understand the significance of the moment. Nicole drew in a deep breath and stood watching him with a smile curling her lips.

Maybe he could be different! Maybe he didn’t have to stay the Ogre of the literary world. The thought of Max growing enough to establish social ties left her blinking the mist out of her eyes. Even though she’d tried to stop caring, she couldn’t.

Max turned then, saying goodbye, and caught sight of her. Not ever ea1sily read, the look in his eyes seemed startled and then, possibly…sheepish.

“A little late this morning, aren’t we?” Max commented, moving past her to leave the shop. Typical of him, he made no explanation of his presence in the coffee house.

Smiling, she followed him out as he held the door, saying with tongue in cheek, “What happened? Did you run out of coffee and they wouldn’t deliver it from your grocery?”

Slanting her a satirical glance, he let the door fall shut without answering her.

Nicole slipped her arm through his. It felt so good to touch him again, her fingers registering the warmth of his skin. “I thought you wouldn’t be caught dead ‘chatting up’ the masses?”

“I wasn’t talking to the masses. Just a couple in a coffee shop,” he said, going to the corner and punching the crosswalk button. Despite their being very much in public, he made no move to disengage his arm from hers.

“Of course,” Nicole said, unable to keep from smiling at him.

“There are some decent people in coffee houses,” he admitted, saying no more.

As they crossed the street with the light change, she felt suffused with warmth. Max had deliberately gone into that coffee shop knowing someone was bound to recognize him. He made a choice to interact.

How could she resist him now that he was attempting to change for the better in such a conscious way? Could his progress have anything to do with her continued prodding?

“Very true. There are some very decent people in coffee houses,” she agreed, hugging his arm close.

Max cast her a sideways glance, wanting to know what had put the lilting smile on her lips. She looked happy and very content in his company. Entering the building behind her, he kept his gaze firmly on the back of her head, refusing to let himself watch the swaying of her hips beneath her slender cotton dress.

“So what excuse are you offering for your tardiness?” he asked as the elevator doors closed and the car began rising.

A rueful expression crossed her face. “None. Alarm clock problems don’t really work as an excuse.”

“It depends,” he responded lightly. Like a randy teenaged boy, he couldn’t help but notice the curve of her hair brushing against her neck. How long had it been since he’d kissed her there? “Did the alarm clock suffer a system failure or did you forget to set it?”

“I think I’d best plead the fifth on that,” Nicole decided after a moment of apparent consideration. She raised her warm gaze to his. “Tell me, why did you go down to the coffee shop this morning?”

Max looked at her, not sure how to respond. He sure as hell didn’t need to tell her he had come down and loitered on the street corner because she was late to work. Protecting knowledge of that kind of reaction to a woman seemed a vital thing to him. How could he tell her about the stirrings in him? He didn’t even understand himself the feelings she roused.

Besides, he really had run out of coffee and hadn’t wanted to wait for a delivery.

He shrugged finally. “I wasn’t in the mood to make coffee and I thought I’d try the place out. It was okay. The coffee is good and there weren’t any pushing-and-shoving fans there.”

“And no paparazzi,” Nicole concluded, that same damned smile hovering on her mouth. God, she looked so
approving
and even…he hesitated to think the word, but she looked accessible to him. Open. Why would that be, at this point? Because he’d gone out for coffee?

Standing in the office doorway, he watched as she powered up the computer. Awkwardly seeking to capitalize on the relaxed, accessible moment between them, he heard himself say, “Pete’s son has a ball game this afternoon.”

Sending him a swift smile over her shoulder, Nicole said eagerly, “Wow! That’s great. Have you and your brother been talking? He invited you to his son’s game? I told you he was willing to forgive you.”

“Maybe,” Max said, absurdly conscious of her approval and his dissembling in order to obtain it. She had the impression he’d been significantly pursuing his brother and Max didn’t deny it despite knowing he should. “The game’s at four. You have to go, too.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he said dryly, “it’ll be a perfect opportunity for you to indulge your need for contact with people…and thus we may avoid your spontaneous need for walks.”

“Okay.” Her smile seemed to envelop him, a sensation he knew he should shun. Where exactly did he think they were heading? It couldn’t be anyplace good. A few phone calls to his brother and going out to get his coffee didn’t change who he really was inside. That part of himself couldn’t be altered long term, he knew that, but she was a temptation too hard to resist. In order to win her for awhile, he found himself willing to indulge in whatever deceit was necessary. That in itself probably proved he was still a bastard.